Phoebe Vet wrote: Samantha:I also did not mention Republican, Democrat, the current administration, Iraq, or Afganistan. I cited our long standing military interference in the middle east. I was not refering to the current fiasco. That is a whole different argument that is unrelated to railroading.Oil is the primary source of wealth in the middle east. They don't need to be intimidated into selling it. We are the only country on the planet that feels the need to have a military presence all over the world to demonstrate how tough we are. We have hundreds of military bases in 130 foreign countries. Incidentally, I was in the Navy during the Viet Nam Era (1966, 67,& 68). It is not about defense, it is about projecting power.The cost of that bully attitude has nothing to do with any form of transportation unless you want to count the fact that the Eisenhower Defense Highway system, usually called the Interstate Highway System, was built so that the military could move quickly to any place in the US on short notice. Therefore I do not believe that any form of transportation should be taxed to support any portion of the miltary.Typing this has given me another thought. Perhaps we could get the Feds to use the same military motivation to take a clean sheet of paper and build a rail system similar to the Interstate Highway system for the same reason.
Samantha:
I also did not mention Republican, Democrat, the current administration, Iraq, or Afganistan. I cited our long standing military interference in the middle east. I was not refering to the current fiasco. That is a whole different argument that is unrelated to railroading.
Oil is the primary source of wealth in the middle east. They don't need to be intimidated into selling it. We are the only country on the planet that feels the need to have a military presence all over the world to demonstrate how tough we are. We have hundreds of military bases in 130 foreign countries. Incidentally, I was in the Navy during the Viet Nam Era (1966, 67,& 68). It is not about defense, it is about projecting power.
The cost of that bully attitude has nothing to do with any form of transportation unless you want to count the fact that the Eisenhower Defense Highway system, usually called the Interstate Highway System, was built so that the military could move quickly to any place in the US on short notice. Therefore I do not believe that any form of transportation should be taxed to support any portion of the miltary.
Typing this has given me another thought. Perhaps we could get the Feds to use the same military motivation to take a clean sheet of paper and build a rail system similar to the Interstate Highway system for the same reason.
Surely you're not suggesting that the reason for the long standing US military prescence in the ME is to "intimidate" countries into selling oil ?
Mailman56701 wrote: Phoebe Vet wrote: Samantha:I also did not mention Republican, Democrat, the current administration, Iraq, or Afganistan. I cited our long standing military interference in the middle east. I was not refering to the current fiasco. That is a whole different argument that is unrelated to railroading.Oil is the primary source of wealth in the middle east. They don't need to be intimidated into selling it. We are the only country on the planet that feels the need to have a military presence all over the world to demonstrate how tough we are. We have hundreds of military bases in 130 foreign countries. Incidentally, I was in the Navy during the Viet Nam Era (1966, 67,& 68). It is not about defense, it is about projecting power.The cost of that bully attitude has nothing to do with any form of transportation unless you want to count the fact that the Eisenhower Defense Highway system, usually called the Interstate Highway System, was built so that the military could move quickly to any place in the US on short notice. Therefore I do not believe that any form of transportation should be taxed to support any portion of the miltary.Typing this has given me another thought. Perhaps we could get the Feds to use the same military motivation to take a clean sheet of paper and build a rail system similar to the Interstate Highway system for the same reason. Surely you're not suggesting that the reason for the long standing US military prescence in the ME is to "intimidate" countries into selling oil ?
If you are interested in the role played by the western powers, e.g. UK, France, Germany, U.S., etc. in the development of the Middle East oil fields, The Prize by Daniel Yergin is an excellent book. It traces the role of the western oil companies since the early 20th century in developing the fields. Military might was not used to gain access to the fields; the developers were invited in by the Saudi's, as well as others, to explore for oil.
The Brits, French, Germans, Russians, and U.S., at different points, have used their influence, including military power, to protect their vested interest in the fields. They have not, however, used their power to run rough shod over the Middle East countries. In fact, when the Middle Eastern governments took control of the oil production facilities in their countries, in the face of western displeasure, the western military powers were relatively helpless to do anything about it.
The U.S. maintains a naval presence in the Middle East, at least in part, to keep the oil sea lanes open. The cost is not reflected in the price of gasoline. It should be. Because it is not, the true cost of driving is not reflected in the price of motor fuel. This is one factor that has helped lead to a lopsided transportation policy in the U.S. that favors cars and planes over trains. And this is how it relates to railroads.
The Interstate Highway System was built as a civilian highway project. To get it funded, the Eisenhower Administration pushed it through Congress on the premise that it could be used for defense in case of a national emergency. Most informed people, according to contemporary news accounts, knew that claiming it was for national defense was a ruse. The military did not fund it nor did it build it.
Our worldwide naval forces are only a shadow of what they once were. Today they have a lot less capability than they once did, although they remain very large compared to those of other countries.
I believe they are simply left over from the cold war. I.e., we keep them up because we can't emotionally face the thought of not having them.
We certainly don't need naval forces to protect oil supplies. If "bad guys" of any type were to scuttle even one multi-billion-dollar tanker, I believe the middle eastern powers that be would take action to prevent it happening again. This is because they (the middle eastern countries) have no other source of revenue. They need to sell oil just as badly as we need to buy it, and they are not going to let anything interfere with that.
kevin1978 wrote:This is the case in Britain where more and more rail companies are moving towards profitability. An amazing example is my local Scotrail. The company has routes which would make your Amtrak long distance look like the honey pot. However they have a good mix of routes which allows an overall balance.
This is the case in Britain where more and more rail companies are moving towards profitability. An amazing example is my local Scotrail. The company has routes which would make your Amtrak long distance look like the honey pot. However they have a good mix of routes which allows an overall balance.
Tulyar, Samantha:
You may have hit upon the financing of operating deficits of commuter RRs. If the additional property tax (due to higher valuation) that is collected around a RR station was all directed to support the operating deficits of that operation that might solve the operating deficit/ It would not solve the capital problem.
blue streak 1 wrote: Tulyar, Samantha:You may have hit upon the financing of operating deficits of commuter RRs. If the additional property tax (due to higher valuation) that is collected around a RR station was all directed to support the operating deficits of that operation that might solve the operating deficit/ It would not solve the capital problem.
Proponents of transport subsidies, especially rail, claim highways and airways users benefit because of reduced congestion. This point is debatable.
In the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, according to a study released last week, approximately two per cent of the population uses public transit, which consists of buses, commuter rail, and light rail. This number is probably too low. It considers the total population. However, 28 per cent of the population is below 16, which could be considered the age when a teenager decides independently how to get from Point A to Point B. The percentage of adults who use public transport is probably between six and nine per cent, although approximately 15 per cent of the users do not have an option. In Dallas more than 40 per cent of the bus riders and 20 per cent of the light rail riders don't have a car. No matter how one slices and dices the numbers, the percentage of people in Texas, which the part of the country that I know best, who use public transport is pretty low. However, with the recent run-up in the cost of gasoline, the number of riders has increased during the first five months of this year.
Overall each user received an average subsidy of $3.22 per ride (2006 figures), whereas commuter rail riders received an average subsidy of $6.44 per ride in 2006. The largest subsidies go to the light and heavy rail users.
Dr. Bernard Weinstein, Professor of Economics, University of North Texas, claims that the light rail lines have attracted a considerable amount of trackside development, which in turn has raised property values and tax receipts along the rail lines. Clearly, the light rail lines in Dallas have spawned considerable development. What is not said, however, is whether the development would have occurred without the rail lines. The rail footprint in North Texas is very small, but development throughout the Metroplex has been very large. In the 32 years that I lived in the Metroplex, the population grew from 1.5 million to 6.3 million. Passenger rail did not fuel the growth or even make it possible. Highways did.
If the true cost of driving had not been masked, i.e. the full cost of gasoline was not passed through to the end user; the Metroplex might have seen a better balanced transport system, with less emphasis on highways and more emphasis on an integrated transport system.
What is happening around the line in Austin? I know its early but-----.
blue streak 1 wrote: Samantha:What is happening around the line in Austin? I know its early but-----.
The Leander to Austin passenger rail link is on target to begin service by the end of this year or early next year. The build portion of the project appears to be on time, but it is over budget to the tune of approximately $30 million, depending on whose accounting you choose to believe.
The equipment has been delivered and is being tested. Also, the operating crews are being trained to drive the trains. Some of the operating training was being down at night, which upset some Austinites who live near the street crossings. Apparently they objected to the sound of the horns.
Apparently the equipment does not meet all of the Federal Railroad Administration's requirements for mixing passenger and freight operations. They claim the equipment fails to comply with 10 of their rules. Capital Metro, which is the operator of local transit services, has filed for exemptions, point out amongst other things that it does not intend to mix the passenger trains with freight trains, as per the comments below.
Most of the station platforms have been completed, and some of the fixtures, e.g. lights, handrails, seating fixtures, canopies, etc. have been set. However, it appears that the stations will not be completed until shortly before the start-up
I participate in a continuing education program for seniors at the University of Texas. A Capital Metro executive is scheduled to speak to us in October about Capital Metro's role in the greater Austin community. We have timed his presentation just before the start-up of the rail operation so that he can give us an update on "the train".
I take a bus from Leander, which is about 18 miles from where I live, to UT. I am looking forward to the opening of the rail link. It should cut my commute by a third. Unfortunately, the rail line will not stop in front of UT. I will have to transfer to a bus that will carry me from the closest station, which will be a mile or so from the campus, to my destination. Moreover, the train will not be able to run into the central business district. Again, Capital Metro is planning connecting buses to carry people to their final destination. This is not an ideal arrangement, but it is the only way that passenger rail could work in Austin. Capital Metro had to use existing right of way. It could not afford to tack down a new right of way.
The Leander to Austin rail link will run on The Austin Western Railroad (AWRR), which is owned by Capital Metro. It operates 155 miles of track from Llano, TX to Giddings, TX with a 6.4 mile branch extending from Fairland to Marble Falls, TX.
The line dates back to 1871 when the Houston and Texas Central Railroad built the Giddings to Austin line. The AWRR interchanges with the UP at McNeil and Elgin. Nearly 49,000 carloads move annually, shipping commodities such as aggregates, crushed limestone, calcium bicarbonate, lumber beer, chemicals, plastics and paper.
Once commuter rail commences freight service will operate primarily at night during non-commuter operations. One rumor has it that commuter rail will run in the mornings to Austin and from Austin in the evenings, with bus service during off-peak hours.
blue streak 1 wrote:Tulyar, Samantha:You may have hit upon the financing of operating deficits of commuter RRs. If the additional property tax (due to higher valuation) that is collected around a RR station was all directed to support the operating deficits of that operation that might solve the operating deficit/ It would not solve the capital problem.
Tulyar:
Getting people to switch to mass transit is a chicken and egg senario.
People don't use mass transit because it doesn't run often enough or to enough places to serve their needs.
Governments don't build more lines, or run trains more often because not enough people use mass transit.
When Charlotte, NC first announced their intent to build a light rail line roughly parallel to South Boulevard and I-77, two roads that come to a complete stop during rush hour, everyone, including the hired consultants were skeptical. They wanted the money used to add more lanes to the existing roads.
One of the arguments was to point out that the route was already served by bus routes, local bus service running every 30 minutes on South Boulevard, and express busses on I-77 to city center that ran only during rush hour. Everyone could see how few people were on those busses when they went by. No one could understand why a train that can hold 236 people per unit, capable of running three of those units per train running every 15 minutes all day, and every 7 1/2 minutes during rush hour, was needed.
There was a great deal of resistance. It has been open only since November, running single units every 15 minutes all day and double units every 7 1/2 minutes during rush hour, and the public complaint now is that it is taking too long to implement the rest of the system which won't be totaly deployed until 2030. People along the proposed Silver Line, Purple Line and the 10 mile extension of the existing Blue Line, want it NOW.
If you build it, they will come...
http://www.charlotte.com/local/story/656506.html
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Tulyar15 wrote: blue streak 1 wrote: Tulyar, Samantha:You may have hit upon the financing of operating deficits of commuter RRs. If the additional property tax (due to higher valuation) that is collected around a RR station was all directed to support the operating deficits of that operation that might solve the operating deficit/ It would not solve the capital problem. I think you'll find in the case of the Victoria Undergroun line in London, that the increase in property tax revenue was so great it repaid the cost of building the line several times over!With regard to a general point of congestion, given the different characteristics of American and European cities, it's probably harder to get people to swithc to public transport in American than Europe because American cities tend to be more spread out and have evolved along a grid iron pattern of roads. In Britain we tried to copy this in the 1960s with the new town of Milton Keynes, which is generally regarded as a bit of a planning disaster. European cities being more compact, they lend themselves more readily to public transport. As long ago as the 1960's the authorities in Britain recognised that it would be impracticable for people to commute into London by car because there was just not enough room for every one to park.
As I mentioned in a previous post, there has been an increase in property development along the Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail system. However, there is no evidence that the developments would not have occurred if the rail line had not been built. That is to say, there is every likelihood, given the growth of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, that the developments would have occurred anyway, in which case there would have been an equal run-up in county wide property values and tax receipts.
In the U.S. property in most states is appraised by county appraisal districts. The rates, which are the other variable in the property tax equation, are set by local taxing authorities, e.g. county, city, school district, etc.
In a growth environment property development will occur irrespective of whether a light rail line is built, and property tax receipts will increase. In a stagnate or declining environment incremental increases in development, e.g. residential, retail, commercial, etc. alongside a new rail line will be offset by abandoned properties in other areas of the appraisal district. The upshot, assuming the tax rate is constant, would be no increase in tax receipts.
I was a strong supporter of the DART referendum. I canvassed neighborhoods and manned telephone banks to help bring it about. But 20 years later I have some reservations about whether light rail, especially in the southwestern United States, where cities are spread out, unlike European cities, is cost effective.
The cost of the Dallas light rail system to date is more than $3 billion. Moreover, the expansion program, which will total $1.8 billion, is more than $1 billion over budget. What started out as a project to be funded with local sales tax receipts became a project heavily dependent on an infusion of federal monies.
Riders on light rail in Dallas get a nice handout. In 2007, for example, they received an average subsidy of $3.18 per ride. For a commuter this works out to $6.36 a day or approximately $1,653 a year. This is for a system that attracts less than three per cent of the Metroplex adult population. By comparison, the 110,000 users of the HOV lanes, nearly double the number of light rail riders, received a daily subsidy of 14 cents per passenger. With the completion of the system expansion in 2013, it is estimated that the average subsidy per light rail rider will increase significantly.
Could you point me to any hard data showing how much the property taxes in the taxing jurisdictions served by the Victoria line were increased as a result of its build out? Also, how much did the new rail line cost, and what per cent of the cost is recovered through the fare box as opposed to payments from government sources?
I was asking if any developments are going up around all the Austin stops. That is more important. Also population density and business density around those stops. Now the densities around the stops in Dallas is a much more reliable metric of the ability of transport to affect changes. Compare the rail line density to other new developments not near these transport locations.
blue streak 1 wrote: Samantha:I was asking if any developments are going up around all the Austin stops. That is more important. Also population density and business density around those stops. Now the densities around the stops in Dallas is a much more reliable metric of the ability of transport to affect changes. Compare the rail line density to other new developments not near these transport locations.
I have not seen any extraordinary real estate developments near the proposed Leander to Austin train stations. There is a sign in a field close to the Leander station advertising it as a prime location for transit access housing and commercial development, but I am not aware of any plans to develop it.
Although I don't have any census data to support my observation, population densities in Austin are considerably lower than in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. It has a population of near 6.3 million people, while the population of Central Texas is about 1.5 million.
Like many cities, Austin is seeing a wave of in-town apartment and condo developments, but few if any of them are near the proposed commuter rail line. That could change, of course, once the train is running.
Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) had a studied performed by a team under Dr. Bernard Weinstein, Professor of Economics, University of North Texas, touting the real estate developments supposedly spawned by DART's light rail system. The study pointed to a number of developments near the light rail line, claiming that they were made possible by the train. The most impressive development has been near the Mockingbird Station area. The study, however, left out several key points.
It did not acknowledge that the developments might have occurred irrespective of whether Dallas built a light rail line. Dallas is a growth community; it is possible that the developments would have occurred anyway. In addition, it did not note that the most dramatic developments in Dallas, e.g. Uptown, Victory Station, Oak Lawn, and Oak Cliff, are not severed by the light rail lines. The biggest in-town real estate developments in Dallas have been in Uptown, which is served by the McKinney Avenue Trolley Line, but very few residents ride it. It is mostly for tourists. The Victory Station area is served by TRE and DART special trains when there is an event at the American Airlines Center; otherwise, there is no service to Victory Station. Most of the residents walk to work or drive.
There is a challenge for public transit in Texas that many people from other parts of the country probably miss. It gets very hot here in the summer. We are already experiencing 100 degree days, and they will be with us until the third or fourth week of September. Unless they have no choice, Texans are not going to fry on a transit platform waiting for a bus or train. They would rather wait in a traffic jam in an air conditioned car or truck.
cordon wrote: This is because they (the middle eastern countries) have no other source of revenue. They need to sell oil just as badly as we need to buy it, and they are not going to let anything interfere with that.
This is because they (the middle eastern countries) have no other source of revenue. They need to sell oil just as badly as we need to buy it, and they are not going to let anything interfere with that.
That is something we often forget. I don't know for sure that the middle eastern countries have no other source of revenue, for example Iran sells caviar and rugs, but I am sure that oil is a big part of their revenue.
Imagine though that you control all the world's oil. In order to have gotten 100% of the market you probably had to forego investing in something else, so keeping with this extreme theme let's say your country produces no food. You can't eat oil, hydrocarbons are not as nutritious as carbohydrates. In order to buy food you have to sell it to somebody at a price they're willing to pay.
Think of the restaraunt sign "Last food for 50 miles, Eat here or we both starve." This guy seems to recognize that monopoly or not, he still has to entice people to buy from him, with humor at least, even if not with reasonable prices.
Patrick Boylan
Free yacht rides, 27' sailboat, zip code 19114 Delaware River, get great Delair bridge photos from the river. Send me a private message
Samantha wrote: As I mentioned in a previous post, there has been an increase in property development along the Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail system. However, there is no evidence that the developments would not have occurred if the rail line had not been built. That is to say, there is every likelihood, given the growth of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, that the developments would have occurred anyway
As I mentioned in a previous post, there has been an increase in property development along the Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail system. However, there is no evidence that the developments would not have occurred if the rail line had not been built. That is to say, there is every likelihood, given the growth of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, that the developments would have occurred anyway
There's probably never going to be any direct evidence to say what the reasons are for real estate development or passengers. Maybe the development would have happened somewhere else had the train station not been buil, but if it occurs near the train station I'd have to conclude that the train station had something to do with picking the location.
Toronto's Yonge St subway north of Bloor St was built in an open trench, subsequently the transit commision got paid for air rights to put buildings on top of the subway. Again, we don't know if the buildings wouldn't have gotten built somewhere else if there was no subway, in fact since they're between the stations as opposed to at the stations it looks like the subway as transportation was not a factor. Nevertheless it is appropriate to allocate the revenue for those buildings to the subway instead of general community funds.
Philadelphia's 30th St to Suburban station tunnel (late 1950's?), and Boston's Amtrak-MBTA Forest Hills to Back Bay station (late 1990's?) are both cases where we took rail lines on an embankment and put them in a tunnel. In Philadelphia's case they put 2 apartment buildings and 2 office buildings, in Boston's case a park, on top of the tunnel. I'm pretty sure somebody tried to make urban renewal part of the decisions for these projects.
Things like this:
http://www.silossouthend.com/
Are popping up like weeds at most of the new light rail stops here in Charlotte.
There is absolutely no doubt that the location was chosen for it's proximity to the light rail.
gardendance wrote: Samantha wrote: As I mentioned in a previous post, there has been an increase in property development along the Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail system. However, there is no evidence that the developments would not have occurred if the rail line had not been built. That is to say, there is every likelihood, given the growth of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, that the developments would have occurred anywayThere's probably never going to be any direct evidence to say what the reasons are for real estate development or passengers. Maybe the development would have happened somewhere else had the train station not been buil, but if it occurs near the train station I'd have to conclude that the train station had something to do with picking the location.
Undoubtedly the development of Mockingbird Station in Dallas was facilitated by the location of the light rail lines. The blue and red lines converge at Mockingbird Station.
It is important to remember, however, that the fastest growing areas of Dallas (residential and commercial) are not taking place near any of the light rail lines or for that matter the commuter rail line between Dallas and Fort Worth. They are taking place in Uptown, Victory Station, Oak Lawn, and Oak Cliff. However, it is anticipated that the opening of the Green and Orange lines will promote addition development in the areas that they serve. They will run through some of the more depressed areas of Dallas and the Metroplex.
The increased property taxes associated with Mockingbird Station don't offset the sales taxes revenues required to build and operate the light rail lines in the Metroplex.
Sales taxes are paid by most residents in the communities that make up the transit district. But only two per cent of the people in the Metroplex are able to use the light rail system or the commuter rail system. As a result the few who are able to use it get a large subsidy from the many who don't use it or cannot use it.
No matter how one slices and dices the numbers, light rail is very expensive. Whether it is the best option, outside of a few locations, is debatable.
That only two percent of people living in an area use the light rail system is only part of the story. The benefits extend far beyond just those people because of reductions in traffic congestion, pollution, and motor vehicle accidents (1). I personally benefit each time a DART rider leaves his/her car at home, even though I live many miles away.
OTOH, people whose livelihoods depend on the automotive and gasoline sectors do not benefit.
Note (1). It's not clear to me that DART has a net positive effect on automobile accidents because DART uses so many grade crossings. It may well be that DART causes more accidents than it prevents.
Samantha wrote: No matter how one slices and dices the numbers, light rail is very expensive. Whether it is the best option, outside of a few locations, is debatable.
No matter how one slices and dices the numbers, highways and automobiles are very expensive. Whether they are the best options is debatable.
blue streak 1 wrote:I agree about Texas weather. I've suffered in Harlengin (sp) and Laredo in the summer (110+). Any indication of decrease in ridership figures in summer?
The number of public transit riders in Texas decreases during the hot summer months, although the exact numbers are difficult to determine. Some of the decrease is due to vacations; some of it is because school is out; and some of it is because more people move during the summer.
I rode public transit to work for 30 of the 32 years that I lived in Dallas. Several of my colleagues, who used it from October to May, would not ride it during the summer because of the heat.
I was a middle level manager in a Fortune 250 company. We had more than 17,000 employees, of whom approximately 700 were executives and managers. Less than 20 of the managers used public transit. None of the executives used it.
Most of the people in DFW who used public transit came from the bottom half of the income distribution continium. However, with the coming of the express commuter buses in the late 1980s and the light rail system in the late 1990s, the pattern changed. Suburban commuters began to use the system in significant numbers.
In 2007 I was able to get DART's rider numbers for every bus and light rail route, as well as the TRE. Although the numbers did not show the incomes of the people who use public transit in Dallas, the patterns of use suggest that the riders can be divided into three groups.
The majority of local bus riders are lower income folks, although there are exceptions. Upper income people do not use public transit. And it is unlikely that they will. Approximately 40 per cent of the bus riders do not have a car. The bus is their only alternative.
A significant percentage of the express bus riders, although how many is unknown, as well as the light rail riders are suits. Most of them work downtown, but some of them work on the fringes of downtown, and some are reverse commuters. They only use public transit to get to and from work.
A significant percentage of the light rail riders at the close in stations transfer from buses that connect with the system at various points. Approximately 20 per cent of the light rail riders, essentially those transferring from the bus system, probably don't have access to a car.
Before the light rail system was implemented, many of the buses ran downtown. Thus, some of the riders on the light rail system were force fed onto it. Ironically, in many instances, their commute time increased because of the transfer time between the bus and light rail.
The third group are special event riders, e.g. State Fair of Texas, American Airlines Center, etc. Many middle class event goers use the special event light rail and Trinity Railway Express services. This is the only time that the TRE stops at Victory Station.
One of the problems with rail is its inflexibility. Once the tracks are tacked down, it is difficult to move them. Thus, in Dallas, the areas that took off just about the time the first light rail trains began to operate are not served by light rail, as per my previous post. There is no way to get a train to them. Had Dallas opted for rapid bus technology it could have easily changed the bus routes to serve the new high density neighborhoods.
As tends to be the case in life, rail has some advantages, albeit very costly ones; but buses are more flexible and can compete with rail if they can run in HOV lanes, which is the case in much of Dallas.
You betcha highways and automobiles are expensive, not only in terms of direct and indirect dollar cost, but also in terms of environmental degradation and social effects on neighborhoods and how people live in their homes, or could no longer live in their homes when they got paved over.
But highways and automobiles are an overwhelming preference, not only true in the US, where gas and roadbuilding is subsidized in various indirect ways, but in Europe, where you long have had highly-taxed gas and those toll stickers for the Austrian and Swiss Autobahn. And no, there is no vast Concrete Lobby, Libertarian-Right Wing Think Tank, Car Company conspiracy. People are willing to pay for highways and cars, either directly through auto ownership expense or indirectly through property taxes and gas tax, at levels that people have not had the enthusiasm to pay for common carrier and transit modes.
A lot of this is a matter of lifestyle. I am old enough to remember the "transit-automobile transition era", at least in terms of growing up in Chicago and surrounds.
I was born in a Chicago city neighborhood, but the family moved to the 'burbs. No, we didn't move out of the city to have a fancy house and have Dad commute into the city. His job moved out to the burbs long before we moved. For the longest time we were a "one-car family", and Dad would take that car to get to his suburban job.
I remember Mom adapting to suburban life without a second car. The go-to place to buy almost anything back in the day -- women's clothes, kids clothes, toys, books, I mean just about everything -- was Marshall Fields on Michigan, and in summer months with school out, a shopping trip went something like this. We would hike out to the suburban bus stop and ride the bus to the El station. From there, the El, perhaps there was a change of trains, would take you past the front door of Marshall Fields -- I seem to remember they even had their own station, or at least a pedestrian walkway to one. The day would be spent "shop till you drop or at least until the kids were beyond cranky", and Marshall Fields even had a restaurant to cover lunch.
The return trek, laden with those classic department store shopping bags, was perhaps a reprise of the inbound journey, but if it happened during rush hour, we would forgo the El train and go to this city terminal for suburban express buses, and I can still smell the propane fumes of that bus garage. Propane buses were the "green" alternative to stinky Diesels in that time. As to mode choices, there was no trains vs buses snobism -- we took whatever bus or train got us to the right place in a convenient manner.
By the early 1970s we had a second car and all of this went by the wayside. Heck, I still remember milk delivery, the milk box on the front steps and the ticket with the boxes you checked off to get your milk order. Milk is a particularly heavy commodity to pack home from the corner grocery store in a sack. But with the advent of suburban supermarkets, Mom found that milk was much cheaper to bring home in the trunk of the car than to continue the milk delivery.
In terms of social changes, perhaps the biggest social change past Mom's generation is the big increase in women working jobs outside the home, and this is tied to big declines in transit and even in car pooling. Dad can talk about how a bus or light rail would be so convenient to get to his job, but Mom not only has to get to work, she has to get the kids to and from daycare, get the groceries on the way home from work, and have dinner on the table at the appointed time. Yeah, like Mom is going to enter into any kind of debate about transit alternatives to a car.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
cordon wrote: I personally benefit each time a DART rider leaves his/her car at home, even though I live many miles away.
I personally benefit each time a DART rider leaves his/her car at home, even though I live many miles away.
How many cars does the light rail and commuter rail systems take off the road in DFW? Practically none! Most users drive from home to a Park & Ride, where they get on the train. The train, however, for the two per cent of residents who use it, reduces the number of auto miles from the train station to the users destination, which in the case of Dallas is usually downtown.
In the case of Frisco, TX, transit does not take any cars off the road. A Frisco resident would only see a reduction in traffic if he drives inside the areas served by the rail system.
Samantha wrote: One of the problems with rail is its inflexibility. Once the tracks are tacked down, it is difficult to move them. Thus, in Dallas, the areas that took off just about the time the first light rail trains began to operate are not served by light rail, as per my previous post. There is no way to get a train to them. Had Dallas opted for rapid bus technology it could have easily changed the bus routes to serve the new high density neighborhoods.
Samantha, had Dallas opted for rapid bus technology how were they to have easily changed the bus routes and still have retained the rapid bus aspect on the new routing?
Samantha wrote: cordon wrote: I personally benefit each time a DART rider leaves his/her car at home, even though I live many miles away. How many cars does the light rail and commuter rail systems take off the road in DFW? Practically none! Most users drive from home to a Park & Ride, where they get on the train. The train, however, for the two per cent of residents who use it, reduces the number of auto miles from the train station to the users destination, which in the case of Dallas is usually downtown. In the case of Frisco, TX, transit does not take any cars off the road. A Frisco resident would only see a reduction in traffic if he drives inside the areas served by the rail system.
My main benefit way out here is reduced pollution and reduced gasoline consumption. And, of course, I admit that it's mainly a matter of principle because the relative numbers of DART users are currently so low. My point is simply that all of us, not just the rider, benefit when a rider uses transportation that pollutes less than a car and uses less oil than a car.
There are other effects that go beyond the rider. For the cars remaining on the road, reduced congestion means that they will operate in a better part of their performance envelope, which also reduces pollution and oil consumption. There may also be reduced accidents, although, as I said before, that needs verification in the case of DART because of the grade crossings.
I'd have to argue with DART not having any measurable effect on traffic - provided the more-or-less parallel freeways are currently congested at rush hour.
Even a small number of diverted trips can have a dramatic effect on freeway trip times. The infamous "C" shaped curve for highway capacity means that once you reach the tipping point from free-flowing to congested, it's game-over for trip times. It only takes a small amount of extra traffic to tip the balance.
However, it appears that DART is providing considerably more than a small contribution during rush hours on the corridors it serves.
From what I can figure, DART currently has four routes from the suburbs to the city (two "red" and two "blue") and daily ridership of about 70,000. If you spread that out over two, two hour rush hour periods, that's over 4000 trips per hour per route.
Since a highway lane can carry about 2000 vehicles per hour, each route is worth about two highway lanes in each direction. It's hard for me to imagine the that the capital + operating expense of DART's light rail lines is more than the capital alone to add lanes to the existing freeways.
To provide similar capacity with suburban bus service would require about 100 busses per hour per route. These would all converge at one place - a bus every 9 seconds.
Cities that grew up around rail transit tend to have higher population density and middle class in-city neighborhoods, shopping and entertainment (Chicago, NY, Boston, Phila, SF). They transit lines came BEFORE the population growth.
Cities that grew up around freeways tend to have suburban sprawl and business-only city centers (LA, Atlanta, Dallas, Houtson)
You can't expect rail transit to be a good fit for an area that grew up around freeways. The density is too low. Neither can you expect to replace rail transit with highways. The density is too high.
You CAN expect that, over time, the development will shift to fit the transportation accomodation that's been constructed. There is quite a bit of evidence of that in Atlanta. There is a continuing boom in residential and office construction in Atlanta - and not coincidentally, it's all along MARTA's lines. Portland OR is the poster child for this effect.
The problem with express bus service, is that nobody makes development decisions around bus lines. Have you ever heard of a new, mixed use development around a bus route?
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
I agree.
While I was a skeptic at first, I am watching the effect work here in Charlotte.
Mixed use development is springing up near every light rail stop.
Paul Milenkovic wrote: No matter how one slices and dices the numbers, highways and automobiles are very expensive. Whether they are the best options is debatable. You betcha highways and automobiles are expensive, not only in terms of direct and indirect dollar cost, but also in terms of environmental degradation and social effects on neighborhoods and how people live in their homes, or could no longer live in their homes when they got paved over. But highways and automobiles are an overwhelming preference, not only true in the US, where gas and roadbuilding is subsidized in various indirect ways, but in Europe, where you long have had highly-taxed gas and those toll stickers for the Austrian and Swiss Autobahn. And no, there is no vast Concrete Lobby, Libertarian-Right Wing Think Tank, Car Company conspiracy. People are willing to pay for highways and cars, either directly through auto ownership expense or indirectly through property taxes and gas tax, at levels that people have not had the enthusiasm to pay for common carrier and transit modes.A lot of this is a matter of lifestyle. I am old enough to remember the "transit-automobile transition era", at least in terms of growing up in Chicago and surrounds.I was born in a Chicago city neighborhood, but the family moved to the 'burbs. No, we didn't move out of the city to have a fancy house and have Dad commute into the city. His job moved out to the burbs long before we moved. For the longest time we were a "one-car family", and Dad would take that car to get to his suburban job. I remember Mom adapting to suburban life without a second car. The go-to place to buy almost anything back in the day -- women's clothes, kids clothes, toys, books, I mean just about everything -- was Marshall Fields on Michigan, and in summer months with school out, a shopping trip went something like this. We would hike out to the suburban bus stop and ride the bus to the El station. From there, the El, perhaps there was a change of trains, would take you past the front door of Marshall Fields -- I seem to remember they even had their own station, or at least a pedestrian walkway to one. The day would be spent "shop till you drop or at least until the kids were beyond cranky", and Marshall Fields even had a restaurant to cover lunch.The return trek, laden with those classic department store shopping bags, was perhaps a reprise of the inbound journey, but if it happened during rush hour, we would forgo the El train and go to this city terminal for suburban express buses, and I can still smell the propane fumes of that bus garage. Propane buses were the "green" alternative to stinky Diesels in that time. As to mode choices, there was no trains vs buses snobism -- we took whatever bus or train got us to the right place in a convenient manner.By the early 1970s we had a second car and all of this went by the wayside. Heck, I still remember milk delivery, the milk box on the front steps and the ticket with the boxes you checked off to get your milk order. Milk is a particularly heavy commodity to pack home from the corner grocery store in a sack. But with the advent of suburban supermarkets, Mom found that milk was much cheaper to bring home in the trunk of the car than to continue the milk delivery.In terms of social changes, perhaps the biggest social change past Mom's generation is the big increase in women working jobs outside the home, and this is tied to big declines in transit and even in car pooling. Dad can talk about how a bus or light rail would be so convenient to get to his job, but Mom not only has to get to work, she has to get the kids to and from daycare, get the groceries on the way home from work, and have dinner on the table at the appointed time. Yeah, like Mom is going to enter into any kind of debate about transit alternatives to a car.
If Mom's transit use is park and ride - and that's about the only way you can even come close to provided mass transit in a suburban sprawl - then her routine can actually be enhanced by mass transit. More predictable and dependable transit times mean she can get the kids at daycare on time and hit the grocery store on the way home.
I grew up in a one car, suburban household, but my folks purchase their home within one mile of the the LIRR train station so that my dad could take a bus or bike to the station. He was out the door at 5:30 AM and back in the door at 6:00PM, every day like clockwork. He had a three seat trip. LIRR diesel train to Jamacia, electric to Brooklyn and bus to Navy Yard.
Later, we lived in South Jersey and still managed with only one car as he carpooled with 4 other guys.
South Jersey provides a good example of development around highways and transit in the auto age. In 1960, most of South Jersey was rural farm land. In the interval from 1960 to 1970, two significant projects were completed. One was the a freeway running south from the newly completed Walt Whitman Bridge about 15 miles south into the farmland. The other was the PATCO high speed line down to the similarly rural Kirkwood NJ to the south east.
The area at the end of the freeway built out almost entirely into single family houses and strip malls. The area around the end of the transit line built out almost entirely in garden apartments.
Neither area had particularly strong zoning requirments, but interestingly, some of the most desirable single family homes in the region (Voohrees) had easy access to the transit line, and rather poor access to the freeways. Also, the only mall in the region that didn't have access to a freeway was built adjacent to the transit line. It didn't attact shoppers by transit. It wasn't located very close to a transit stop, but rather it served the medium density population clustered along the transit line.
oltmannd wrote: I'd have to argue with DART not having any measurable effect on traffic - provided the more-or-less parallel freeways are currently congested at rush hour......... Cities that grew up around freeways tend to have suburban sprawl and business-only city centers (LA, Atlanta, Dallas, Houtson)You can't expect rail transit to be a good fit for an area that grew up around freeways. The density is too low...... The problem with express bus service, is that nobody makes development decisions around bus lines. Have you ever heard of a new, mixed use development around a bus route?
I'd have to argue with DART not having any measurable effect on traffic - provided the more-or-less parallel freeways are currently congested at rush hour.........
You can't expect rail transit to be a good fit for an area that grew up around freeways. The density is too low......
DART has had an impact on traffic density inside its service area, albeit it low. Approximately two per cent of the adults in the Metroplex ride the light rail and commuter rail systems.
What I said was that DART has taken few if any cars off the roads. This is true. But in the case of the DART and the TRE riders it has taken car miles off the road and transformed them into train miles inside the rail service area.
Most suburban rail riders (light rail and commuter rail) drive to a park & ride lot where they park the family buggy and board the train. The net reduction in car miles is equal to the portion of their commute from where they board the train to where they get off.
DART does not know how far its light rail passengers ride. Nor does it know what type of vehicle they parked. Thus, it does not know how many vehicle miles its trains take off the road and, equally important, it does not know how much pollution is eliminated by those who ride its trains. It does not know whether its passengers are Honda Civic devotees or Ford 250 drivers.
The Red Line, which runs from Plano to the Dallas CBD and on to West Moreland, which is located in southwest Oak Cliff, boards inbound passengers at the Plano terminus. They come from Allen, Plano, etc., which are affluent communities. A few come on a connecting bus, but most of them drive to the station.
At the West Moreland end of the line the passenger mix is markedly different from the north boarding passengers. Although some of them drive to the West Moreland Park & Ride, many of them come on connecting buses. And a higher proportion of them don't have access to a car. They are not taking a vehicle off the road.
As the train proceeds to town it picks up more park & ride passengers until its gets south of Forest Lane. From there to town a significant number of passengers are fed into the red line by connecting buses. Interestingly, in some instances they come off connecting buses that ran downtown before the light rail line went into operation. And even more interesting, at least to skeptics, their commute is longer, not shorter, because of the rerouting of the bus line and the transfer from the bus to the train.
As I mentioned in a previous post, approximately 40 per cent of DART's bus riders don't have a car. The number of passengers connecting with the light rail who do not have a car is unknown. However, DART told me that approximately 20 to 23 per cent of the light rail users don't have a car, as is true for 13 to 15 per cent of the TRE passengers. These numbers need to be factored into any estimate of the number of vehicles and vehicle miles that the rail lines take off the road.
DART has difficulty getting information about its riders because it does not have a positive fare collection system. Therefore, it depends on sample surveys for its information. As you can imagine, collecting rider information on a crowded train early in the morning is a challenge.
In 2006 the light rail system carried a daily average of 50,904 passengers. In 2007 the average number was 49,041, a decrease of 3.7 per cent. Of course, the number is higher during the week and lower on the weekends. Although the 2008 figures are not available, I have heard that the number of riders is up between five and eight per cent from April 2007 to April 2008. These numbers can be found on the DART website.
The red and blue lines began operating in 1996. Twelve years later one significant real estate development (Mockingbird Station) could be attributed to the light rail line. In addition, with a little bit of a stretch, one could say that a redo south of downtown, as well as a new apartment complex near Presbyterian Hospital, was spawned by the light rail lines.
As I mentioned, most of the developments in Dallas have been in areas that are not and will not be served by light rail. No one has any hard data to support an argument that the developments next to the light rail line would not have occurred if the light rail system had not been built. In a growth area like Dallas they surely would have although not necessarily on properties close to the rail line.
DART, as well as the American Public Transit Association, has commissioned studies touting the economic benefits of light rail. I agree with many of their findings. But they paid for the studies. Most auditors, at least, look askance at studies that are paid for by the client. It tends to produce a biased report.
To stir the pot a bit further, DART and TXDOT added HOV lanes on two of the major highways that parallel the rail lines for much of the way. As a result, a daily average of 110,000 people uses the HOV lanes. With the exception of the HOV lane on I-30, which uses a complex movable barrier, the cost of adding the HOV lanes on I-35 and U.S. 75 was minimal. They reduced the existing lanes by six inches, for a total of 18 inches, and eliminated the center emergency stopping lane. Presto! They had an HOV lane for the cost of stripping and the placement of some flex poles to mark it. These lanes will be excellent for rapid buses if DART decides to include them in its mix.
Proponents of light rail have made a convincing argument for it in many locales. In fact, I was a strong proponent of it in Dallas and spent many hours getting a referendum passed to make it happen. But I have had some second thoughts about it. Whether the results justify the cost is debatable.
Anyone who argues that a rapid bus complex and route attracts real estate development in a economic growth area would have the same challenge of proving it as the proponents of light rail. They may think that it does. But believing that it does and proving it are two different things.
Rail is a good choice in selected environments, but those who think it is a universal solution, as seems to be favored by many folks who participate in this forum, are probably wrong.
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